Cooking vessels, such as stock pots, often have a pair of handles which project outwardly from the upper edge of the vessel at opposing locations which are intended to be grasped by a user during active use, such as after the contents of the vessel, such as corn on the cob, have been cooked over a burner. If the vessel has exposed metal handles it may only be grasped by using a pot holder or dry cloth as an insulator between the hot metal and the hands and fingers of the user. If a conventional phenolic or other hard plastic envelope is formed over the handle, the temperature of the handle assembly may be somewhat cooler to the touch than the base metal, but still too hot to be handled by the bare hand. Thus a pot holder or cloth is a necessity. One of the main difficulties with using pot holders or cloths is that the pot holder or cloth may be wet in an area which comes into contact with the bare metal and hence one or more fingers may be subjected to heated moisture which can be at a temperature too high to be comfortable to the user. And in some cases a pot holder or cloth may be worn, or torn, or burned away in an area located between the hot metal and the user's fingers, again with uncomfortable results for the user. Rubber would appear to be a viable alternative to the above described options. However, in order to use rubber as a grip insulator, it would be necessary to mold the rubber around the handle. Since a typical stock pot may have a diameter of 10", or even 12" such as an 8 quart stock pot, the molding process becomes quite complex and slow, having in mind the need to move a large bulky object into and out of engagement with rubber molding equipment, and ensure proper sealing at the rubber and metal junctions.
This problem is becoming particularly acute at the present time as metal handled cookware appears more and more frequently in the home kitchen. At an earlier time, and still today, cookware in the commercial or professional market, i.e., restaurants and food service establishments, invariably includes metal handles. This is because phenolic handles simply do not stand up to the rough usage in a commercial kitchen environment, as for example, when the vessels are tossed from a distance of several feet into a wash tub after use. The metal handles present no handling difficulty to the professional chef because such a chef always has both an apron and a fresh towel tucked into the apron string and hence one or both layers of cloth are readily at hand when it comes time to remove a hot pot from a burner.
The situation is quite different in the kitchen of the average consumer. Very few home cooks use aprons and even fewer move about the kitchen with a cloth tucked into their belt.
At the present time consumers are demanding, and cookware manufacturers are providing, commercial (often called "gourmet") style cookware for the home kitchen market with metal handles. The problem then is to provide such cookware at a price which the consumer can afford because molding a rubber handle onto the cookware is not a viable option due to the high cost. The home kitchen user also wishes to be able to clean the handles effectively, a task which is not always easy when a phenolic is formed on the metal handle; cracks and crevices in which food particles can lodge are invariably present.
There is therefore a need for a grip insulating system which utilizes rubber with its inherently good insulating qualities, but which does not require complex and expensive molding operations to associate the rubber grip with the metal handle, which permits the rubber handle to be readily removed for cleaning, and, concomitantly, which permits the rubber grip to be easily inserted and, once inserted, fixed in position so that it does not accidentally slip off in use at a critical time.
In this connection elongated rubber grippers are known for stick handles, and such elongated grippers are known to be quite effective. An example is shown in the Bett et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,197,611, a patent directed to commercial grade cookware. However, the handles of a stock pot are very short, usually less than 2 or 2-1/2 inches in radial length away from the periphery of the stock pot, and hence the long length available to form friction resistance between the metal stick handle and a rubber sleeve are simply not available in the short handles which are common to cookware vessels other than fry pans.